"And when they ask us what we're doing, you can say, We're remembering...." (Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451)

Friday, October 03, 2008

THIS... IS... JAMES EARL JONES

James Earl Jones, whose commanding voice is behind Darth Vader, the Lion King and CNN commercials — and acting skills have earned him an Oscar nomination as well as Emmy and Golden Globe wins will get a very special accolade at the SAG Awards this year. The Screen Actors Guild (SAG) announced today that, Jones, whose acting prowess and iconic voice are world-renown, will receive the Guild’s most prestigious accolade-the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award for career achievement and humanitarian accomplishment.... In the 1960s, he was one of the first African-American actors to appear regularly in daytime soap operas (playing a doctor in both “The Guiding Light” and “As the World Turns”). He made his film debut in 1964 in Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove: or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”

(Pictured above, James Earl Jones and Cecily Tyson. Tyson was the first African-American actress ever signed to a daytime contract when GL hired her and Billy Dee Williams in 1966. Mr. Williams' role was later recast with James Earl Jones.)